Various applications accept, manipulate, and display content on a graphical user interface, such as Microsoft® Windows® operating system. One application that displays data in various formats on a graphical user interface is a spreadsheet application, such as the Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet application. Spreadsheet software or applications are relatively well-known and useful tools. Typical spreadsheet applications simulate physical spreadsheets by capturing, displaying, and manipulating data arranged in rows and columns. The intersecting rows and columns create numerous cells within the spreadsheet. Typically, each cell may contain an item of data and/or a mathematical formula.
Generally, spreadsheets include a formula bar. A formula bar is a user interface item that allows the user to enter data into the formula bar to enter that data into a cell or allows the user to read data that is contained in a selected cell. The formula bar accepts text, numbers, formulas, and other various types of data. Generally, the formula bar has a text box, which generally displays a single line of data. Inside the text box, the contents of an active cell are displayed. The active cell is typically the cell that is currently selected and has the focus of the spreadsheet. Unfortunately, the active cell often contains more data than can be shown in the single line text box.
To allow the user to display more of the data within the text box, the text box allows the user to place the cursor inside the data and then move the cursor to view the rest of the data. However, the text box still only displays a single line of text. Thus, the user cannot see the entire set of data or even a large portion of the data within the text box. When editing formulas or other larger collections of text, the limitations of the single line text box become evident. The user must continually scroll back and forth in the text box to ensure the formula or text is entered correctly because the user cannot see the formula in its entirety within the text box.
Some other formula bars provide a display where only the text box expands to shown the data in the active cell. Unfortunately, if there is a large amount of data, the text box often covers other menu bars, toolbars, or cells within the spreadsheet. The expanded text box obscures the user's view of the data within the spreadsheet. To view the cells of data covered by the expanded text box, the user often must select a different cell or scroll the spreadsheet to move the covered data out from under the expand text box. The expanding text box prevents the continuous display of the data and frustrates users by requiring their interaction with the spreadsheet to adjust the view continually. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention was made.